


cut through bones like apple cores

by Azzandra



Series: Traverse [5]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, Flushed Romance | Matesprits, Horrorterrors - Freeform, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-15
Updated: 2013-10-15
Packaged: 2017-12-29 12:44:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1005606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azzandra/pseuds/Azzandra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Terezi needs some help, and Rose needs to practice some self-restraint. Well, self-restraint in <i>some</i> things at least.</p>
            </blockquote>





	cut through bones like apple cores

**Author's Note:**

> This is best understood if you first read _siren from a distant shore_ , and maybe also _season to taste_. (Reading the other two stories in the series is not necessary, but might fill in some more blanks for you.)

Sunsets on Traverse were always lovely. They had a syrupy, orange taste that lingered in the back of Terezi's mouth. She opened her mouth and breathed in deeply. The street came in sharp focus as she inhaled, every angle, every shadow, every passing creature.

Not that there were that many passing by to begin with. The ones inhabiting this part of the city were crepuscular, and already off to work, or scrounge for food, or whatever they did when they were awake. The few aliens who passed her by gave her wide berths.

This suited Terezi magnificently. She had a clear view of her prey, walking many feet in front of her.

To his credit, he didn't run.

If he did run, Terezi wasn't completely sure she could catch him. Being a legislacerator had helped her build up quite the stamina, and she even enjoyed a nice brisk chase once in a while. But she wasn't familiar enough with the confusing Traversian streets to know if he tried to give her the slip or lead her into an ambush. Her best chance was to wait until she reached a place where she could corner him, or use the terrain to her advantage somehow, and she had no idea where or when this opportunity would present itself, but she needed to be on the look-out in case it did.

He didn't know that, of course. She'd been following him overtly for almost half an hour, her pace matching his. She didn't try to catch up, but neither did she allow him to lose her. She followed, stepping evenly, loudly tapping her cane on the ground with every step, so he would know exactly where she was with every step.

He probably thought this was merely a terror tactic, but it worked nonetheless. He reeked fear—Terezi could taste its pungency whenever she was downwind of him—but he didn't dare break into a run. As long as he continued to think that him running was exactly what she wanted, he wouldn't, even though in reality it was the only thing that would save him.

So she continued, inhaling deeply, constantly aware of her surroundings and her prey both. Waiting for him to make a mistake. With every resounding rap of her cane against the ground, his shoulders flinched imperceptibly. His body was as tense as a taut steel cable, but on the inside—oh, on the inside she could just _taste_ him unraveling.

He rounded a corner, but Terezi felt no alarm. Her smell was not as limited as eyesight, and she could follow his stench to places where eyes were useless. She didn't quicken her pace, but when she rounded the corner, she realized her mistake.

The yvrain quarter.

She walked closer to the narrow street flanked by arched, spiraling buildings, but the closer she got to them and the strange paint peelings that carpeted the ground, the more aware she became of the truth.

She had lost the suspect's trail. The smell of the yvrain neighborhood, so overpowering to Terezi's sensitive nose as to make her nauseous, blinded her completely. Her smellsight was blanked out.

She turned around and retreated around the corner, leaning against a building and breathing in deeply of the fresher air.

She made a note to smack his shins especially hard when she finally arrested this guy.

*

Rose paused with her hand on the doorknob, just as she was about to enter the apartment she shared with Tavros.

The fine hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. She had her violin case in her other hand, and she considered if gently placing the case on the floor would alarm whoever was watching her. She had fallen out of the habit of carrying her knitting needles to work, but now she questioned that decision.

Maintaining her calm, she turned towards the darkest corners of the hallway. Her gaze couldn't penetrate the darkness, and the other sense she could use to tease the shadows apart was not something she permitted herself anymore.

“It's quite rude to stare,” she said in her most haughty tone, and her voice did not even tremble.

She still couldn't see anything, but she got the sense she was being grinned at.

“I was wondering if you'd notice me!” a familiar, rasping voice said.

Terezi stepped out of the shadows casually.

“Honestly now, Neophyte,” Rose said, raising an eyebrow, “is skulking like a common criminal behavior becoming of you?”

“I didn't want to startle you,” Terezi replied, her grin turning sharp, because she probably knew that she'd done it anyway.

Rose rolled her eyes.

“Well, I suppose you're here to see Tavr--” She cut off with a thump and a short invective.

Rose had turned the doorknob and moved to pass through the door before realizing that it was locked and would not opened. This resulted in her hitting against it quite hard.

“Tavros isn't home,” Terezi very helpfully informed Rose, and this time there was absolutely no sign of a grin on her face.

Rose still shot her a scathing look and rummaged through her pockets for the keys.

“Is he working late cleaning after your mess again?” Rose asked.

“I can't take all the credit,” Terezi said, “sometimes the criminals help. But no, whatever the reason for his staying late, I am sure it is completely self-inflicted.”

Rose still gave her an unamused look as she inserted the keys in the lock.

“So if you know he's not here, why are you waiting at his door like a lost puppy?” she asked.

“His door? I was under the impression you lived here too.”

“Are you implying it was me you were waiting for?”

“Am I?” she said, tilting her head.

“Are you?” Rose raised an eyebrow.

“Am I?”

“I would be extremely embarrassed if anyone overheard us right now.”

“Agreed. Let's pick up from an earlier point and never mention this tangent again.”

“So, why were you waiting outside my door?”

“I have come to deputize you, Miss Lalonde!” Terezi declared.

Rose didn't say anything, just opened the door and walked in. Terezi followed without being invited in.

“Please restrain your enthusiasm,” Terezi chided.

“I will try not to swoon from the swell of joy rising in my breast,” Rose said dryly. “Why in the world would you need to deputize me?”

“Because I suspect that otherwise you would refuse to help!”

“Do I get a badge and a white hat?”

“I am not recruiting you into a FLARPing campaign, Lalonde, I'm enlisting your help in an ongoing criminal investigation.”

“An Alternian criminal investigation,” Rose said, stressing every syllable.

“The best kind!” Terezi nodded.

Rose scoffed.

“Clearly we are operating under different definitions of the word 'best',” she said.

She put down her violin case and she shrugged off her coat, throwing it haphazardly over the backrest of an armchair.

The living room was nothing but armchairs, crowded together around a table. Tavros would sometimes pick them off the side of the road on his way home from work, since a lot of humans on Traverse left unwanted furniture outside for anybody to take. Most of the aliens on the planet didn't really understand the concept, and after Rose explained it to Tavros, for a while, he was left with the impression that he was _supposed_ to take it, just to be polite.

“Yes, one of us clearly has no concept of fun,” Terezi muttered, and she took the opportunity to sprawl into one of the armchairs. She sat leaning with her back against one arm, with her legs over the other so she faced Rose. “I don't see why we're even arguing about this. Refusing to be deputized by a legislacerator of the Empire is a culling offense.”

Rose felt a smile pulling at a corner of her lips. She strode over very purposefully and leaned over Terezi, one hand braced against the armchair's backrest so she could loom above her without straining.

“Really, Neophyte? Are you going to cull me?” Rose asked.

If there was any amusement in her tone, it was a close cousin of gallows humor. Something of the old recklessness drove her to it, but she let the question hang heavy, she let Terezi consider the implications of culling a hatefriend's moirail.

There was a waver of uncertainty in Terezi's expression, so brief that Rose might have missed it if she hadn't been looking so closely for it.

“Well,” Terezi said, obviously stalling. Then she sat up in the chair, bringing her face just inches from Rose's. “If I am able to cull you, then you are not in possession of the abilities I require of you anyway.”

Rose raised an eyebrow, because she didn't know if she should be impressed by this deflection or frustrated that Terezi didn't immediately start babbling apologies. She maintained eye contact for a few brief seconds, belatedly remembered that Terezi was blind, and then her eyes moved lower, to her lips.

Terezi's mouth was parted, perhaps so she could better scent Rose, but that was a secondary thought in Rose's mind. Rose found something elegant in those black lips, in the tips of razor sharp teeth peeking through.

“The issue,” Rose said, her voice controlled, “is not that I possess whatever hypothetical abilities you believe I have, but that I would be at all inclined to use them if I did.”

She addressed the liquorish black of Terezi's lips, and watched as they curled into a smile.

“Of course you have them, Miss Lalonde,” Terezi said, and tilted her head as if in thought. “And I don't think your moirail would worry about you half as much if you weren't _inclined_.”

“Oh my, aren't you quite the detective,” Rose scoffed, the charm of Terezi's lips fading as the words that they produced displeased her.

Rose stepped back, walking towards the kitchenette area of the apartment.

“Can I offer you something? A drink? A light snack?” she asked, voice dripping with saccharine politeness.

She turned the light on, and as she turned towards the fridge, she was startled to notice that Terezi had followed close on her heels and stood just a hand's breadth behind her.

“What you can offer me is help,” Terezi said. Then, after a thoughtful pause, added, “Please.”

Rose didn't really expect that. She didn't expect a 'please', and now she had to adjust herself to the odd tinge this conversation was beginning to get.

“What do you even want from me?” Rose asked.

“I can't tell a civilian the particulars. Not until I'm sure that civilian will be part of the investigation.”

“So you want me to help you, but you won't tell me with what until I agree to help.”

“Yes, exactly! Already, we understand each other so well.”

Rose stared for a few moments, quiet and with a perfectly neutral expression on her face. Terezi matched her expression perfectly, and gave no signs that she found Rose's stare unnerving. Rose took out a soda from the fridge and passed it to Terezi.

“There will be conditions,” Rose said.

Terezi grinned.

“And I haven't said yes yet,” Rose added hastily.

“Of course not. But there will be conditions,” Terezi drawled, entirely too pleased with herself. “Call me when you know what those are. Tavros has my contact information, I'm sure.”

She turned around and swaggered towards the door with entirely too much confidence, and Rose snorted quietly to herself.

“Leaving already?” Rose asked, sickly-sweet. “I don't even get a kiss goodnight?”

There was a hitch in Terezi's step, but she recovered quite smoothly. Rose counted it as a victory, even if she had to tip her hand too much to get it.

“Not on the first date, Lalonde,” Terezi replied over her shoulder. She raised the handle of her cane to her forehead in a salute, and walked out the front door.

Rose stood in the middle of the kitchenette for a few more long minutes, trying to recall what she usually did after arriving home and drawing a blank every time.

*

Tavros arrived home to find Rose knitting thoughtfully as she sat in an armchair. She didn't respond to his greeting, and he shrugged off his coat and went to get a drink of water. Then he returned and sat down near her.

“Terezi seems nice,” Rose said.

He looked down at Rose's knitting needles, and the way they worked rapidly, clicking together in the silence of the apartment.

“She's a very old friend, I suppose,” he said cautiously. “Uh... What brought this on?”

“She asked me to help her with something,” she said airily.

“Oh. Well, in that case, I feel it's my job, as moirail, to remind you that you are a civilian, and also alien, which means you technically have no obligation to help her, but especially with nothing like chasing down criminals.”

“I didn't say it had anything to do with law enforcement,” Rose said.

Tavros gave her a level look.

“Well, I didn't,” Rose repeated, somewhat more defensive, and looked down at her knitting.

They stayed in silence for a while.

“Is she dangerous?” Rose asked.

Tavros didn't reply at first. Rose looked up to see him staring at the ceiling thoughtfully.

“I'm trying to figure out a way of answering that question, that won't make your flushed infatuation worse,” he said.

Rose actually put her knitting down in her lap and gave Tavros a look.

“I don't know what you're talking about,” she said in a clipped tone.

“And I'm sure your blush right now, is proof of how completely clueless you are,” he replied.

Rose pressed a hand against her cheek on reflex, and then let it drop, glaring in accusation at Tavros.

“I have more sense than to endanger myself for the sake of a little flirtation,” she said.

“Why did she come to you at all to begin with?” Tavros asked.

“She needed my unique skill set,” Rose said.

“Rose...”

“She didn't elaborate on why she needed it or how she would employ it.”

Tavros sighed.

“For justice, of course,” he muttered.

“Ah! Justice! Nothing more reassuring than _Alternian justice_. Like a nice, hot, arsenic-laced cup of tea. Mmmm, delicious, murderous justice!”

“Well,” Tavros said, “if you have these kinds of misgivings, you shouldn't help her.”

“But I want to,” Rose sighed, and then shut her mouth, because she realized how uncomfortably true that was. She picked up her knitting, but instead of continuing to work on it, she pulled out the knitting needles and held them in her hands.

“She's not so bad,” Tavros said after a while. “She thinks about stuff, like right and wrong, and fairness, even though she's not obligated, as a legislacerator, to do that.”

“But you don't think I should help her.”

“I think that if you think you shouldn't help her, or even if you think you should but you don't think you want to, then you shouldn't help her.”

“...My, that's an accurate and not at all confusing summary of the situation.”

“What are moirails for?”

Tavros got up and moved closer to Rose, in the seat right next to her.

“I'm not worried about a relapse,” she said. “I just want to make that clear. But I think I want to test my limits. I might need to know them one day, and I'd rather not find out under duress.”

Tavros papped her on the back.

“Alright, if that's what you want,” he said agreeably. “You can go on your date with Terezi.”

“It's not a date. We're going to bust crime together.”

“I'm pretty sure, that's precisely Terezi's dream date.”

A small smile bloomed on Rose's face.

“You think so?” she asked, her voice faraway and hopeful.

Tavros rolled his eyes.

 


End file.
